For every day in 2008, I did something new. In 2016, I am challenging myself to break my routine at least once a week.

Saturday, October 10, 2009

Yup, it's fall.

I had a few things to pick up at the store this morning, and Wanda wanted to borrow the car at 11, so I got moving early-ish today. I was home with time to spare, then she took off and I was stuck here.

It has been a long time since I have been car-less on a Saturday.

Luckily, the weather was beautiful. I decided I'd better take advantage of it.

The days lately have been quite warm (albeit rainy), but the snow is coming. Usually I pull the garden out on Thanksgiving weekend. This year I wasn't sure I'd be able to, since it has been so wet. When today was nice, I decided to get it done. I picked the tomatoes. I picked about 2 gallons of green tomatoes, a lot of them quite small. I picked my four carrots. They were beyond tiny, possibly because someone (I'm looking at you, rabbit trying to hide under the bush) ate the tops to almost nothing. Put together, they would not make one small carrot.

I also picked the cantaloupes. This is the first year I've grown them. They grew really quickly, then ... kind of stalled. I'm not sure whether they'll keep ripening now that they're off the vine (or how to know that they're ready). I will have to do some investigation.

Once I picked the vegetables and fruit out of the garden, I pulled out the plants and put the tomato stakes back in the shed. I also turned off the water to the tap outside.

When I got back in the house, I took a nap (yup, I'm starting to require daily naps), then worked on the quilts. I got a long way towards being finished - which is good. The pieces are on the dining room table, and I need to get it cleared off before the guests arrive tomorrow night. (I could just temporarily move the pieces of material somewhere else, but I'd much rather be done.) I've also figured out what to do with the end squares.

I'm making 16 patchwork pieces in total - one for each grandchild - and I suggested to my mom that we make polar fleece quillos. A quillo (which I'm not sure I'm spelling right) is a small quilt that folds up to make a pillow. (There is a pocket on the quilt that you turn inside out with the rest of the quilt inside.)

I suggested that we use the patchwork pieces I'm creating as the cover for the pocket, and leave the rest as simple polar fleece. That's the easiest option, and most likely to result in actually getting these done sometime this decade.